Water treatment will create byproducts - organic and inorganic solids that require landfill. Going to be a problem eventually.

Getting to the self sufficient, 100% renewable cycle will expend huge amounts of non-renewable energy and produce a lot of solid, liquid and gas waste in the process - the CO2 alone would be enormous and the system is under huge strain already.

Even if all this was negligible, we have the same problem with earth itself being a constraint, and the stresses our resultant population boom would create, we might just kill the damn thing - plucked clean like a swarm of locusts swarmed over it.

Not to mention the sociopatholigarchy.. Just what would they do if fuel/energy didn't keep them on an already long leash

not really, any chemical structure can be transformed or used in some useful way, nothing actually needs to go to a "landfill" - ever.

Rory » 18 Dec 2013 19:53 wrote:Getting to the self sufficient, 100% renewable cycle will expend huge amounts of non-renewable energy and produce a lot of solid, liquid and gas waste in the process - the CO2 alone would be enormous and the system is under huge strain already.

inevitable. status quo is unacceptable, but the only deal on offer at the moment. Again you bring up this idea of "waste" - Rory, waste is old thinking, nothing needs to be wasted anymore. There's a wide variety of simple chemical processes to clear CO2 from the air, in fact, in 50-100 years we'll probably be moaning about not having enough CO2 in the air anymore.

Rory » 18 Dec 2013 19:53 wrote:Even if all this was negligible, we have the same problem with earth itself being a constraint, and the stresses our resultant population boom would create, we might just kill the damn thing - plucked clean like a swarm of locusts swarmed over it.

naw. the opposite will happen.

Rory » 18 Dec 2013 19:53 wrote:Not to mention the sociopatholigarchy.. Just what would they do if fuel/energy didn't keep them on an already long leash

what would they do? They quite likely would get the hell out of our way, and they won't have a lot of other choices.

Rory » 18 Dec 2013 19:53 wrote:Not to mention the sociopatholigarchy.. Just what would they do if fuel/energy didn't keep them on an already long leash

Indeed, just look at what happened when we started to use fossil fuels (what a misnomer...) in earnest.

By the time we've finished cooking ourselves, Venus will look like an attractive destination

Peace

"Now that the assertive, the self-aggrandising, the arrogant and the self-opinionated have allowed their obnoxious foolishness to beggar us all I see no reason in listening to their drivelling nonsense any more." Stanilic

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, we have found the solution here. Let's not even ask about EROEI, let's just hypothetically assume, since this is the solution to our energy problems, the EROEI is somewhere between 100 to 1 Texas Tea and Mr. Fusion infinity. Say this solution can be implemented in any private owner's garage or storage facility so that we can continue our Happy Motoring Society at affordable prices.

Now the practical question: once this algae becomes oil, and we refine this formerly algae/now crude oil into aviation fuel, gasoline or diesel fuel, wouldn't burning this diesel fuel, aviation fuel or gasoline release the same amount of greenhouse gasses that burning crude oil that didn't start out as algae releases?!

I mean, am I missing something here, or could we possibly have found the Ultimate Soma to make Humanity's collective suicide that much sweeter?

and the CO2 goes right back out of the air into growing more algae. It's net carbon neutral.

Thank you for answering my question, justdrew. It really made me think, not just about energy and the environment, but made me question myself, my ideological predilections, hell even the concept of ideology itself. I don't get much sleep on nights when my thoughts get that deep, but I think it's better for my psychological well-being in the long run.

Bottom line, I've come to the conclusion that where the Carbon Crisis is concerned, (I use that term to express the civilization-threatening calamity we face from both Peak Oil and Global Warming, which are flip sides of the same coin, the overconsumption of carbon) I'm probably not a liberal. But I'm certainly no conservative. Perhaps the greatest impediment that keeps people from waking up and realizing that having our lives dependent on an economic system predicated on growing infinitely on a finite planet is a recipe for slow-motion suicide is ideology. Ideology’s just a tool that political parties bought by moneyed interests use to get people to vote against their own interests. There really is no right or left – there’s those who rule and those who drool. Every single dollar you earn is your bid in a Ponzi scheme designed to kill you that we call: The System and Johnny Rotten calls: The Shit-Stem!

You know what the difference is between Republicans and Democrats? Both parties will fuck you in the ass to better serve their corporate masters. But the Democrats use lubrication. That’s the difference that explains why I’ve tended to vote for them in the past. Republicans will yank you by the scalp, rip your fucking ass open while blaming your pain on a dark-skinned foreigner, pound you deeper by using the blood of soldiers to ease the friction, then afterward light up a Marlboro and tell you they’re pro-life. Democrats will smooth talk you with promises, seduce you with the idea that they really support the people, then just before they penetrate your poop chute with their corporate cock, they crack open a bottle of Astroglide – paid for with your tax dollars! And the vast majority falls for whatever set of tactics they find appealing as long as lip service is paid to their particular social fetish.

I say fuck ideology period! It is a devious social construct, a divisive, archaic, bullshit paradigm created centuries ago by the French that we must evolve out of for both the common good and individual freedom. I have infinitely more respect for the wood cabin survivalists that the media labels “right-wing” and the organic hippie communes that the media labels “left-wing” than I do for the pious self-righteousness of your typical 21st century conservative or liberal. Both ideologues are by and large in denial of the total predicament. The typical conservative expression of denial is ignorance: some Ditto-head NASCAR dad always voting Republican to stop homosexual atheists from teaching his children about dinosaurs. “Why else would God give us all this oil if it warn’t to pop wheelies with our Hummers and smoke out those rag-head Mooslims?” That brand of stupid is really too easy to make fun of. It's a bit more slippery with liberals because, to paraphrase Phil Ochs, they're just shadier. "Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

As it pertains to the subject you broach, being net carbon neutral, (and I don't mean to single you out, justdrew, I don't know you personally, I don't know how you think, I'm just addressing the subject generally. If you can point out flaws in my logic, please do so.) the typical liberal expression of denial is delusion: they’re not ignorant of the situation, they just evade the inevitable with the delusion that we can solve the Carbon Crisis Conundrum and still keep our high-tech Happy Motoring Society intact. “Just drive an electric car. No gas. Charge up in your solar-powered home. Problem solved.” Deluding themselves into believing they stand apart from our collective responsibility for our civilization’s suicide because they’ve reduced their “carbon footprint”. In a world riddled with bullshit rationalizations, the carbon footprint concept is bullshit with a whole lotta Splenda sprinkled on top. You calculate the amount of carbon dioxide emissions you’re responsible for – and then you don’t eliminate them from your life! You offset them by doing nice things to make up for your part in planet-raping. Planting trees, buying solar panels, driving electric cars. All just to ease their conscience into thinking everything’s even-Steven because they can honestly calculate that they’re “net carbon neutral”. The damage is already done! CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years!

Try applying this same logic to your relationship: “Honey, I just fucked somebody else, BUT – I wore a condom the whole time, even during oral, and especially during anal, I pulled out before coming, so I haven’t shared my orgasm with anyone else, AND I paid the bitch to go away and never do that to me again! Now, since I’ve already fucked you twice this week, I don’t think I’ve really made a dent in my fidelity footprint, have I? I mean, I’m at least net fidelity neutral, no big deal, right?” Is this why Tipper split up with Al Gore? Now, don’t get me wrong, Goddess bless Al Gore for doing more to raise awareness of the reality of Global Climate Change than any politician. And as far as conservative ignorance can make science “debatable”, it’s such a willful ignorance that it defies debate, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail deliberately ignoring all his lost limbs. “The polar ice caps are melting!” “No they’re not!” “Look, you can sail a fucking boat through the North Pole!” “It’s just a flesh wound!” “OK, that’s a partial admission. What are we gonna do?” “Claim all the oil! Drill, baby, drill!” Shit, if Pat Fucking Robertson can’t reach these goalpost-shifting nimrods, nothing will. Yeah, he briefly saw the light before flip-flopping. But even if a miracle occurred, they saw the light and Al Gore and friends had all the political will they ever dreamed for, we would still be operating on the delusion that we can buy our way out of this predicament. That the same selfish mentality where we can all be greedy little consumers obediently sticking our snouts in the corporatist trough that got us into this mess is going to save us because this time, the corporate trough we’re slurping from is Green. A well-lubricated ass-fuck is still an ass-fuck!

Now I've got to ask you directly justdrew: whether you burn algae-grown crude oil and grow more algae, or burn crude created over millions of years under the Earth's crust and grow a buttload of trees to be net carbon neutral, can you honestly guarantee a reduction in the 400 PPM of carbon dioxide given the exponential growth rate of carbon consumers? (Think Chindia) I submit that to reduce the PPM of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, perhaps the most environmentally conscious move would be not to consume carbon in the first place! Maybe that means a real global revolution to change the way money works. Not just changing the way wealth is distributed as various revolutionaries have in the past, but changing the nature of money itself. Maybe that's too much to wish for. Perhaps the more practical route is addressing the elephant in the living room, that dirty C word no President since Carter has had the courage to tackle head on: CONSERVATION!

"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."-Jim Garrison 1967

Dynamite is processed in a way that creates toxic byproducts and it uses a lot of (very clean) water (and makes it very toxic by the time it's finished with).

We use dynamite to blow up mountains in West Virginia. We extract coal and use diesel to send it from one side of the country to the other.

We burn this to create electricity. This electricity pumps 60-90% of the water that goes to the central valley and southern california - feeding the country's biggest farms and 30 million people with water. This hydraulic lift over the Tehachapi mountains, is the single biggest consumer of electricity in the state of california. 3% annually, or something.

This water is filtered and polished before being delivered to homes and businesses. The clean is energy intensive and the pumping requires more power still.

The home owner in the San Fernando Valley, uses this potable water to irrigate his lawn and the only person to ever set foot on his grass is his gardener, once a week at best. The sprinkler system sends water coursing through 75F (annual, daily average), 3 times a week and twice a day. 60-90% of that evaporates depending on when his sprinklers are set to go.

This is insanity - the definition of madness. Replacing fossil fuel with clean energy does not change this insane behavior. People are irrational and will behave as such. Until that changes, then all the free-clean energy in the universe will be just kicking the can a bit farther down the road.

Rory » 18 Dec 2013 19:53 wrote:Not to mention the sociopatholigarchy.. Just what would they do if fuel/energy didn't keep them on an already long leash

Indeed, just look at what happened when we started to use fossil fuels (what a misnomer...) in earnest.

By the time we've finished cooking ourselves, Venus will look like an attractive destination

Peace

The problem with this graph is that it is a complete lie. First of all, it is a prime example of the fallacy called post hoc, ergo propter hoc, first noticed by the Classical Greeks. That is, "after the fact, therefore because of the fact." It would be just as easy to suggest that the technology to crack and use petroleum was another effect of the technological development that included all of the other discoveries noted in the graph. As the man said, "lies, damned lies, amd statistics."

Second, the notion that progress has been linear and that there was no high civilization before the Sumerians is an article of faith on the part of most historians, but, in the end, is just an assumption based on what we might call temporal chauvinism. There is growing evidence that there was at least one high civilization associated with a growing number of sites, including the recently discovered Bosnian pyramids, whose date of construction was no later than the 8.2 Kiloyear Event (ca 6250 BC) and there was a significant global temperature rise associated with the Erdalen Event (4 degrees Celsius lasting 4000 years, ca 7450 BC) that could conceivably have been associated with a high civilization, as the current spate of global warming has been associated with industrial development.

In regard to the latter, I should point out that nothing catastrophic resulted from this 4 degree C temperature rise. In fact, it is coterminous with the period of a fertile Sahara that ended with extensive flooding in Egypt and Mesopotamia round about 2950 BC. The notion that we can draw any kind of meaningful conclusions from a couple of hundred years of temperature data is positively bonkers.

I'm looking at 20F outside right now. We're setting up for a blizzard tonight and tomorrow, probably 10+ inches. Then the bottom will fall out of the thermometer and we'll plunge well below 0F. I gotta know how I'm gonna keep this house warm enough to keep the cats from freezing.

And, on edit: I agree that this may be the most important thread on the board.

Last edited by NeonLX on Sat Dec 21, 2013 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist

for mobiles, carbohydrates is the clear answer. Nature has already determined this, and we are now learning how to use the sun to build carbs on demand. That's a big deal. It's not all the solution, it may never make sense for general 'grid' electricity, but for that we have ever improving photovoltaic and thermal solutions. The sun gives us all we need energetically.